Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Here’s how you can use Twitter to enhance your organization’s collective intelligence. Getting set up: First, you’re going to need a Twitter account (obviously). Set up an account as you typically would, but I recommend adjusting your privacy settings to protect your tweets so that your competition won’t be able to benefit from your organization’s internal feed. Organize curation, contribution and support. Define roles. Volunteer to be the lead curator, responsible for collecting content and publishing it for everyone’s benefit. Promote that you are doing this to your organization so they know how to experience the benefits and get involved by contributing their best finds. Gain the support of senior leadership to really give this initiative a shot in the arm. Having the support of your leadership team will help this plan to really take off, and to gain the attention it deserves from the rest of your organization.

Twitter may have started off as a fun social media site for keeping up with friends and sharing updates about daily life, but it’s become much more than that for many users over the past few years as the site has evolved and grown. These days, Twitter is a powerhouse for marketing, communication, business, and even education, letting people from around the world work together, share ideas, and gain exposure. It has become a staple at many online colleges and campuses as well, leaving many academics wondering just how and if they should be using Twitter both in the classroom and in their professional lives. So we’ve revised our original 2009 list to get you started or up to date. Whether you’re an academic or just interested in building your Twitter profile, keep reading to learn some tips and tricks that can help you take the first steps towards using Twitter for coursework, research, building a professional network, and beyond.

Although LinkedIn gets a lot of love as a professional social media site, Twitter is a force that can’t be ignored by up-and-coming young professionals. It’s a great place to get connected and informed, and an especially good resource for growing professionally. But how exactly can you use Twitter for professional development? Check out our list to find different ways.

Hashtag is a great way for users to get a tweet to appear in search results and discussion threads. An example of a hashtag is #edtech that is used by thousands of educators all around the world. People following this hashtag find it easy to monitor what people are talking about in this category and can also participate in the conversation as well.

A new wave of startups is working on algorithms gathering data for banks from the web of associations on the internet known as “the social graph,” in which people are “nodes” connected to each other by “edges.” Banks are already using social media to befriend their customers, and increasingly, their customers’ friends. The specifics are still shaking out, but the gist is that eventually, social media will account for at least the tippy-top of the mountain of data banks keep on their customers.

And in the last year or so, financial institutions have started exploring ways to use data from Facebook, Twitter and other networks to round out an individual borrower’s risk profile—although most entrepreneurs working on the problem say the technology is three to five years away from mainstream adoption.

Twitter is a powerful communications tool, but figuring out the best way to use it can be somewhat of a mystery. Twitter mastery can be especially daunting for nonprofits and other cause-based organizations, whose staffs have heard that Twitter can be a tool for changing the world. If that’s true, then how does one go about doing so?

This guidebook, Twitter For Good, by Claire Diaz-Ortiz, the manager of social innovation and philanthropy at Twitter, seeks to provide answers. By and large it hits the mark. The book cites many case studies of successful Twitter campaigns and explains why those campaigns were successful. The book also explains the kinds of mistakes nonprofits make on Twitter, helping readers steer clear of those mistakes.

The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keyword or topic in a Tweet. Any Twitter user can categorize or follow topics with hashtags.Those hashtags (usually) mean something and are a great way to get a tweet to appear in search results or discussion monitoring.

For example, the popular #edchat hashtag is used by thousands of users every Tuesday. It makes it easy (sort of) for people to monitor what’s happening in the conversation rather than having to try and guess what topics you should search for. By having a conversation on Twitter using hashtags, you also make it easy for any other Twitter user to join in.

Just like Augustine marveled, in the year 400, at the sight of Ambrose reading in silence, many members of academia marvel (or react with rejection) at the rapid changes in the production and dissemination of scholarly work and interaction between academics and those “outside” academic institutions. Thousands of scholars and higher education institutions are participating in social media (such as Twitter), as an important aspect of their research and teaching work.

There is still considerable resistance to embracing social media tools for educational purposes, but if you are reading this article you are probably willing to consider their positive effects. New technologies have slow adoption cycles, and often the learning curve is steep. Those already using these tools within academic contexts should not be considered a priori as “the converted”; perception and usage of social media varies wildly, and due to the inherently fluid and malleable nature of the platforms themselves we are still in the process of assessing all their possibilities.

There is a community of networking and collaboration among educators from the U.S. and all over the world that I have missed out on. I jumped right into developing my PLN (Personal Learning Network). If you have been on Twitter for a while and/or have been part of a PLN then this all may sound silly to you. I know many teachers who do not know about the great benefits to using Twitter for professional purposes. I am particularly writing this post for all of my teacher friends and other teachers out there who don’t know what they are missing out on, like I had been. Educators normally have a negative opinion about social networking due to privacy concerns. I am not advocating using social networking or Twitter for personal and non-professional contact with students. I believe that there needs to be a professional line between student and teacher.

Academic Support

The Learning Change Project is a personal not4profit initiative to support academic teaching and research. Download and G-translate the pdf files and use them for your Courses/Research lists. To prepare those lists explore the Category Cloud or search for the topic of your interest. If you need any support, contact me.